ABSTRACT
A 2001 survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare put the number of people with physical disabilities in Japan at around 3.4 million. Another 50,000 intellectually disabled people and 2.18 million people with mental disabilities bring the total to over 6 million (Kusunoki 2002), or around 4.8 per cent of the population. During the 1990s, several things happened which saw the discussion of disability assume a greater than usual degree of prominence. In 1993, the government revised several earlier laws into the Fundamental Law for Disabled Persons. Two years later it announced a seven-year (1996-2002), multi-Ministry National Action Plan for Persons with Disabilities (DPI-JAPAN 1999: 1). Then came the 1996 Law of Promotion of Measures for Human Rights Protection, which encompasses disability within its brief of human rights education. And, of course, the media coverage of the 1998 Winter Paralympics in Nagano focused public attention on the issue as well.
